Guest Post – Freelance Writing Tips: From the Start

July 2, 2014

As you might have realized, I’ve been a bit missing in action with regard to my blog. But I’m back – and I mean business. This week I’m featuring a guest post by a recent freelance friend. Freelancing can be a rather lonely journey, so it’s always pleasant having a fellow writer reach out and share their expertise. Victória Oliveira shares some of the Freelance Writing Tips. Feel free to leave comments and ask questions, that’s what this journey is all about.

Start a Blog

When you don’t have experience starting your own personal blog is the key that can open a lot of doors. If you are still starting and need to use the articles to showcase your abilities, don’t focus on writing about online one topic in it, write about everything you feel comfortable writing about and use it as a personal excuse to push yourself to get out of your comfort zone and write about new topics.

Every Writing Experience Is Relevant

It doesn’t matter if the article you were able to get published don’t fit the description in the freelance job advertisement. Remember, you have to start somewhere to get experience in this and every other topic, then why not apply?

Online Connections Are Important

In person connections are important, but online connections is a tip for who is still starting and is not able YET to be in a writers’s filled environment. That’s how most Jobs are offered to you. Simple and easy habits as social media engaging, Rting and replying on twitter, sharing blog psts you are inerested on, can guarantee you a lot of connections who can help you get freelance jobs.

An important thing a lot of people don’t know, it’s that, there are times a day that your social media posts get more views than others. According to Entrepreneur website, the best time to get traffic in social media accounts are:

Pinterest: On Saturday from 2 p.m.-4 p.m. and 8 p.m.-11 p.m.

LinkedIn: 7 a.m.-8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m.-6 p.m.

Google+: 9 a.m.-11 a.m.

Twitter: On weekends from 1 p.m.-3 p.m.

Facebook: Weekdays 6 a.m.- 8 a.m. and 2 p.m.-5 p.m.

Blog: Monday, Friday and Saturday at 11 a.m.

If you don’t have the time to always be online everyday at this exact time, use websites like http://hootsuite.com/ to help schedule your posting. It is important to emphasize social media engaging is important every time, so if you have a free time and don’t know what to do with it, socialize on your social media accounts.

Use websites like klout.com to measuring and analyze what’s working for you, considering the topics of articles you post. Social Media is always changing its rules or making new ones, and by using Klout you get to have a personal analysis of what work the best for you.

Perfect Your Writing

The most important thing to be a good writer is to have complete domain over grammar and spelling. Typos happen, but that’s why you must double check your articles before submitting them to review EVERYTIME. There are also a lot of websites, tools and apps that can help when you are not absolutely sure of the spelling of a word or in its grammar. The easiest out of all of them is to write the word the way you think it’s spelled in google’s search box. 9 times out of 10 google is going to give you the correct answer in the “Did you mean:” generator. If you prefer using websites, try Reverso, Grammarly and other websites available on the internet.

And of course, to be a writer is important to have the habit of reading. It can be anything, any books, websites or magazine. Read for fun because it doesn’t matter what you read, since you read it, your grammar and spelling is going to improve to its perfection.

Perfect Your Pitch

From all of the tips I could give for pitching, I would say there are 2 that really stands out.

1. Research the topic as if you were going to have a test about it

Think of pitching as a business proposal. If your proposal is good, the chances of getting it approved its higher. So, to make your pitch sound appealing, you need to know a lot, if not everything about a topic to be able to make a really good article, and as pitching is basically presenting a short bio of your article, you need to present it well in order to get it published.

2. Keep it short and relevant

When writing a pitch, think as if you were the editor getting that pitch. Nowadays no one has the patience of the time to read long pitch about everything and anything at the same time. Even not being an editor can’t you think of better things to do with your time? So, write a straight to the point pitch!

PITCH, PITCH, PITCH!

It’s important to pitch a lot, to a lot of different websites and magazines constantly until your articles get chosen and published in a lot of them. Remember, a writing clip have NEVER been too long!

Living in Brazil, Victória Oliveira has worked for influential brands, blogs and magazines like Dormify, Potterish, Blogócios, Rock Revolt Magazine, Inspiring Women Magazine, Conscious Magazine, myEstilo, Elegant Magazine, The Culture-ist and now The Joy of Unemployment. She is a passionate feminist and is interested in everything art-related. Make sure to check out her website: http://victoriaoliveirawrites.weebly.com/ and follow her on twitter:@VOliveiraTweets